Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Funny Clover

Today I took the kids to Beus Pond and met up with some homeschooling friends. At one point my friend Melinda and I were walking with Oskar, Clover, Annabel and Eleanor (Melinda's one year old). The kids found some very large rocks to clamber upon and they proceeded to clamber with gusto. Then Eleanor fell off a rock on her head--it made that unpleasant watermelon squish sound. Fortunately she wasn't that high off the ground and it sounded worse than it was. That didn't keep Eleanor from crying, loudly, and longly.

Clover took all this in and froze on the rock where she was standing. Then she started saying, "Mom! This is very dangerous! This is very dangerous! This is very dangerous!" It sounded more like, "Dis very daynjous!" I had to lift her off the rock because she refused to move. She didn't even twitch. It was darling. I'm glad one of my children has a sense of self-protection.

*Melinda and I have noted that Annabel and Eleanor make splendid twin names. They are almost exactly the same age, but, alas, look nothing alike.

"The story is told that in ancient Rome a group of women were, with vanity, showing their jewels one to another. Among them was Cornelia, the mother of two boys. One of the women said to her, 'And where are your jewels?' To which Cornelia responded, pointing to her sons, 'These are my jewels.' They grew to be two of the most persuasive and effective reformers in Roman history. It is so obvious that the great good and the terrible evil in the world today are the sweet and the bitter fruits of the rearing of yesterday's children. As we train a new generation, so will the world be in a few years. If you are worried about the future, then look to the upbringing of your children." Gordan B. Hinckley, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints